


The Half Moon

by Stormfet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, The Mauraders, but posting cuz it's my update day and I've been meaning to post this, old stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormfet/pseuds/Stormfet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius is getting antsy that their next adventure is a full two weeks away. James comforts him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Half Moon

It had been weeks since the last fight with his parents, but Sirius was still reeling from their shouts of “blood traitor” and “traitor to your kind”. The lowest blow had been when his mother, positively frozen with anger had hissed that if he had loved muggles so much to join them in their dirty pigsties. He was being pushed closer to the brink every day. OWLs were approaching in not more than four weeks time, and the stress of the tests on top of his family feud was shortening his temper. He finally cracked in potions when Peter asked him to help him.

“No, I bloody well don’t know the order to put them in, Peter!” Sirius had bellowed in the middle of class. The Ravenclaws and other Gryffindors stopped in their work. Remus’s mouth was hanging open, his potion slowly becoming more green as his spotted slug extract dripped into his cauldron from his still hand. Peter was shaking. “Read the instructions on the board and leave me alone!”

“Students!” Slughorn had called from the front of the classroom. “Calm yourselves down! Sirius, ten points from Gryffindor! And don’t make me add a detention on as well! Get ahold of yourself, man!”

“Sorry,” Sirius muttered, turning back to his potion, now a hideous yellow. Sirius sighed as he began to reread the instructions on the board to right the potion. He felt a breath behind his ear and looked up.

“Tonight,” James hissed at him, “You need a break. Pity it’s not the full moon. Meet me in the dormitory at half-past ten. We’ll get you calm.”

After he had said that Sirius couldn’t wait until the end of the day. Classes dragged on. History of Magic had never been slower as Binns droned on and on, reviewing for the exams. Remus was the only one who had his notes out, dutifully copying them down. Sirius tried to remain calm, his usual casual self, but his shoulders had a tightness to them that he couldn’t shake off no matter how many times he stretched. James ruffled his hair in the seat in front of him, shooting him a grin, and Sirius smiled. He was the only one who could really cheer him up...

Dinner was slower than usual as he tried to eat his beef stew but the Slytherins over a there table were being distracting, bragging about the latest muggle-born they had tortured. With a particular surge of hate, Sirius spotted Snivellus among the sixth and seventh years, laughing along with them. He wanted so badly to pull out his wand and shoot Snape a particularly good curse, but not at dinner. Another time to torture him, when everyone wasn’t watching.

Sirius brooded in the corner of the common room alone, as Remus and Peter sat in some of the other stuffed chairs, Remus helping Peter study for Transfiguration. They sat there practicing the vanishing spell, Remus had collected several bugs from around the room in the corners. His spiders vanished in an instant. Peter still had trouble with his beetle.

“No, the wand motion isn’t so much a stab, it’s more of a flick,” Remus said. James still hadn’t returned from Quidditch practice. The last match of the season was in two weeks, Gryffindor versus Slytherin, and it was the deciding match, if Gryffindor won, the cup was theirs, if Slytherin won, however...Snivellus would never let them hear the end of it.

“I’m gonna turn in early,” Sirius said to Remus, who wasn’t really paying attention. Peter had just started moaning about how he was going to fail all of his OWLs, and Remus was busy comforting him. 

“Ok, see you...” he said distractedly. Sirius elbowed his way past some of the runty first years over in the corner and stomped up to his dormitory.

He sat down on his bed, the farthest from the door, picking up a mirror from the table, staring longingly into it, wishing James would answer, but he would be back soon, Quidditch had to be over soon.

Sirius stared out the window at the darkening sky. Over in the horizon, the moon had risen, just past a half moon. After the Quidditch game, soon, they would have another adventure, there last before the year was through. They should make it a good one. Perhaps venture into the Forbidden Forest again, the last time they had done that was particularly enjoyable, they had stumbled upon a nest of bowtruckles, and Remus and Sirius had barked themselves hoarse chasing the little wooden fairies.

Eventually he sat back on his bed and laid down, staring at the ceiling, tracing the cracks with his eyes. All his homework was finished (for once), but even if he had something to do he wouldn’t have been able to do it, he was so distracted that night.

“Getting bored, are we?” whispered a voice in Sirius’ ear. He jerked awake, having fallen asleep, and James sitting next to him on his bed, a grin on his face, his hair ruffled and messy. Immediately all of his anxieties melted away, and he was feeling energized, like he could run a marathon. “Come on!”

James grabbed his invisibility cloak from the table and they hustled down the stairs together, avoiding some of the youngsters climbing up. The common room was less full now, most of the younger kids having gone to bed and OWL and NEWT students still up, working on assignments and shuffling through notes, reviewing. Keeping quiet, they darted out of the portrait and into the halls, finally alone. James whipped the cloak off, and they set off, walking the empty, dark halls. The two boys found themselves in a corridor on the fifth floor, near a set of windows looking over the forbidden forest. They ambled down the hall, chatting.

“Wow, two weeks away from a full moon,” James said, pointing.

“Yeah, I noticed earlier,” Sirius said, his hair hanging casually in front of his face. “We should go out to the forbidden forest, make it a fun last adventure of the year. God knows Peter needs a break, Remus too, he’s been working himself like mad...”

“We all have,” James said. “If you hadn’t snapped at him in Potions I surely would have.”

“I still feel bad about it,” Sirius said. “But exams, and my family all together, it just sort of...came out. I wish I hadn’t.”

“Don’t,” James said, his hand on Sirius’ shoulder. “If I had parents like that, I don’t even think I could live with myself. How do you do it?”

“Well, I snap at them more than I should,” Sirius said. “Sometimes I’m tempted just to leave, you know? Get out of there while I have the chance. Live in a flat in London, I suppose, although money’d be an issue...”

“You can stay with us, you know,” James said. “You’re more than welcome to.”

Sirius felt a warmth spread out from his gut as James said that. His face grew serious, and he stopped walking and looked at James. “You’re serious?”

“Course,” James said, a few steps ahead of Sirius, their eyes meeting.

Sirius bounded forward a few steps. “James!” he said, giving him a massive bear hug. “You have no idea how amazing that is! Man, if I could move out right now I would, but I need the gold, so I’ll have to wait for that, but oh, man, you’re-”

He stopped, frozen, looking into James’ hazel eyes, unblinking. Several thoughts ran into his head, jumbling together all at once. His realization that James was the only one he would do anything for, James’ love for Lily Evans, the fact that he, Sirius, had every girl at school fawning over him but that didn’t seem to matter at the moment.

He looked down at his feet. James, his finger at his chin, pulled his head up again, smiling. “Don’t ever look down, Sirius,” he said. “It’s not like you. You never run away.”

“Can’t I just this once?” Sirius asked, his voice quiet, tense, keeping it as steady as possible, his heart pounding.

“Not this time,” James said, and then they were kissing, and Sirius had never felt this way about anybody before, but he knew then and there that it would never happen. But right in this moment, he could enjoy it, James’ hands at his back, the half-moon glowing over the forest, and the promise that everything might possibly be ok.


End file.
